


Turning darkness to light

by vendettadays



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Dreams vs. Reality, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:54:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27419845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vendettadays/pseuds/vendettadays
Summary: Something wasn't right.Adora stared at her hand. Her palm tingled. Her fingers ached with a chill. Dread prickled the back of her neck.They had brought magic back to the planet of Até. So why did it feel so wrong?
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 73
Collections: Fic In A Box





	Turning darkness to light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FictionPenned](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionPenned/gifts).



There was something that wasn't quite right. Adora stared at her right hand. There were no new scars on her skin. No fresh cut or lesion. The calluses from years of training with a stun baton were present as ever. There were the new calluses on the old from the weight and grip of She-Ra's heavy sword. There was the raised scar too, dark and thin, running from the bottom of her forefinger to her wrist as it had done since she was ten years-old. Her hand was as it always was. Nothing to indicate why her palm tingled and fingers ached with a chill that could only come from being submerged into icy water. She turned her hand, clenched and unclenched it into a fist. 

Adora looked around her with a deep frown, unsure how she had arrived in the captain’s ready room on Mara’s ship. Or _Darla_ as Entrapta insisted on calling her. The lights were low, an ambient purple effused every corner, soothing and calming in its softness. Only, Adora felt the opposite. 

Dread prickled the back of her neck as she turned and turned on the spot, looking for something in the expansive room. It was important. She was in the middle of doing… _something_. It slipped from her fingers as she jumped at the hiss of the door sliding open. Adora spun around, almost falling as her feet twisted together. 

‘Woah, what’s with the dancing?’ Catra slinked in, hips swaying as she walked in. A sly smirk in full force on her lips. ‘Practising your moves for the next Princess Prom?’ 

She rushed over to Catra, driven by the rushing pulse of her blood in her ears. Catra was here. Didn’t she feel it too? Adora took Catra’s wrist in her hand. Even her touch on Catra’s arm felt unnatural in its absence of heat. 

‘Something doesn't feel right,’ said Adora, desperation hitching her voice higher. Her eyes darted around the room, to the Captain's table and chair, to the door, back to Catra whose face was filled with worry.

'Nothing's wrong,' soothed Catra. Her tail flicked to Adora's wrist, sliding up and down her arm in a familiar, soothing gesture. 

‘Yeah, you’re right.’ Adora nodded and the feeling of wrongness faded as an unusual calm flooded her body, spreading from the base of her neck and down her spine. Her shoulders lost their tenseness. Her hands still felt cold. The back of her neck still prickled as if she was missing something. ‘Nothing's wrong.’ 

'It was an intense fight.' Catra's hand tangled into Adora's, pulling her to the door and out onto the bridge where Bow was sitting in the captain's chair as he guided Darla through space.

'It was?' asked Adora, confused that she couldn't remember fighting. It was like everything started with her in the ready room. But that wasn't right, was it? 

'Jeez, Adora, how hard did you hit them with a headbutt? Those Atéiaen bots had no idea what was coming when you smashed your head against their control panels.'

Catra's rasping laugh calmed her. Adora grinned. That's right, she had done that. She had charged head first at the bots. Why would she second guess that? Adora laughed along with Catra and Bow. 

They had returned magic to Até, a planet in the sigma-theta quadrant whose planetary infrastructure was completely run by bots. There were so many bots that there were hardly any Atéiaen’s on the planet itself. 

That wasn’t true. 

There were no Atéiaens when they’d arrived. 

It was just the bots. 

Hundreds and hundreds of bots that chased her. 

Bots that took—

Adora jerked out of her thoughts. The tingling in her hands returned, spreading up her arms and creeping across her shoulders. The earlier calmness disappeared almost as mysteriously as it had appeared. 

‘Where did you go?’ asked Catra with concern, head tilting to the side.

The hardened edges of the Catra who was raised in the Horde and grew in the harshness of the Fright Zone softened with each passing day, and it filled Adora with so much feeling to see Catra opening up as they grew closer. Adora leaned into Catra’s side. 

‘I was thinking about…’ She paused, drawing a blank at what she had been thinking about before. ‘Nevermind, it must not have been important.’

‘Well, don’t hurt yourself,’ joked Catra. Adora rolled her eyes. 

‘Very funny. If you’re not careful, I may leave you on Etheria next time.’ It was an empty threat. She would never leave Catra behind. 

‘You’re not getting rid of me that easy.’ Catra ran her fingers down Adora’s arm. ‘You promised to stay.’ 

Adora’s breath hitched as déjà vu hit her so hard it sent her mind reeling. Her stomach revolted and Adora screwed her eyes shut, legs weak and muscles aching as she dropped to her knees. She closed her eyes tight at the nausea that squirmed through her insides.

‘Adora!’

The room flickered with a sickly green film overlaying her vision. Her eyes flew open to the same eery green. Gasping from the queasy roil of her stomach, Adora closed her eyes again. Cold. She was so cold. Her body shook uncontrollably. Familiar hands cradled her face, palms hot against her cheeks. The feverish chill faded slowly, draining away as warmth seeped back into Adora’s body. 

‘Open your eyes.’ Catra sounded far away, voice breaking as she uttered, ‘Adora, please.’ 

With a shaking breath, Adora unwillingly opened her eyes for fear that the world was still that sickly shade of green. Bright blue and glowing yellow were the colours she saw as Catra’s face came into focus. 

‘What happened?’ Catra’s worried eyes roved over Adora’s face. 

Adora swallowed thickly, each breath coming a easier as she focused on Catra’s touch against her face. ‘I don’t know.’ 

‘Did you catch something?’ Catra pressed her forehead against Adora’s to check her temperature. 

'Maybe? Is it even possible?' 

'Darla's bio-scans didn't pick up anything in the atmosphere,' commented Bow. He pulled up the scans from when they had first arrived in Até orbit. 'Maybe it only affects First Ones?'

Adora shrugged and pushed off the floor to her feet, the dizzying spell having passed enough for her to stand. Her legs still felt like jelly. She smiled gratefully at Catra and took her offered hand. 

Bow's explanation didn’t sit quite right with her. She turned to the scans. 

_{13-05-13-15-18-25_  
_1805161201030513051420_  
_XC% }_

‘What is that?’ Adora stood closer to the holo projection. She stared intently at the random selection of numbers and letters. ‘Are they coordinates?’

Bow shrugged and engaged the landing sequence for Darla’s entry into Etheria’s atmosphere. ‘They’ve been popping up since we left Até, but Entrapta says it’s a coding error in Darla that she’ll fix when we’re back home.’ With a tap of Bow’s finger on the panel, the error disappeared. He smiled. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ 

‘Oh, I’m not worried,’ said Adora automatically. She frowned and rubbed the back of her neck with a shaking hand. She shook her head. ‘I’m just tired, I think.’ 

‘I’m not surprised, you practically stormed your way into the planet’s core, did your She-Ra thing and returned magic to Até,' said Glimmer, the bridge door closed with a whoosh behind her. 

A memory rose swiftly at Glimmer's words, of Adora as She-Ra, boots clanging against the metal walkway with every step, racing along silent corridors to the core of Até and into a circular room, filled with tanks and tubes, and linked to machines. 

Catra stood next to Adora and wrapped an arm around her waist, resting her head against her shoulder. A solid presence for Adora to focus on, to distract her from the shaking of her hand. 

They would get home and she would feel better. Rest was what she needed. Maybe that was the problem, the non-stop missions and space flights to bring magic back to the planets. 

She hadn't had the chance to rest since the war had ended. Every day had started with a new list of things to do. Days were spent stripping and recycling the metal machinery that made up the Fright Zone, so Scorpia could rebuild her family's kingdom. She had worked late into the evenings to build new homes for the displaced people of Etheria, sawing wood and hammering new walls, and building strong foundations for those who had lost everything in the war.

Everyone needed She-Ra. 

Adora sought comfort in the grip of Catra's hand on her waist and tangled their fingers together. The weirdness from earlier faded. But it lingered in the back of her mind like an itch she couldn't scratch easily. Rest. She needed rest and she would feel better. 

She counted the moons that orbited Etheria and took in the swirling clouds, the cerulean blue of the oceans, and the verdant landmasses that made up her home. 

They were home. 

***

Adora turned on the spot, confusion deep in the furrow of her brows at the press of trees that surrounded her. The Whispering Woods. Specifically, the part of the Woods that led to the Crystal Castle. She swore she had been looking down at Etheria from space only a moment ago. A niggling at the back of her mind told her she had been back in Etheria for a few weeks. That she was here to meet Catra. That this was right. 

Restlessness swelled and faded, drawn to the front of Adora’s mind and pulled back like the tide on the beach. A shiny object lying on the grass caught her attention. 

She bent down to pick up Bow’s trackerpad, the screen face down in the grass. She looked around the surrounding woods for a sign of Bow. He would never leave his beloved tech lying around. But she wasn't meeting Bow. She was here to meet Catra, so Bow's trackerpad being here made no sense. 

Adora turned the trackerpad over and froze at seeing the screen. 

_{ M-E-m-o-18-Y_  
_-18e16la03eme14T-_  
_95% }_

They were the same series of numbers and letters as the error code on Darla, except for the new letters that replaced the seemingly without pattern numbers. She pressed the screen, but nothing happened, the code remaining unchanged and without any clues to tell her what it was. 

A high pitched ring sounded in Adora's ears. She flinched and dropped the trackerpad. She slapped her hands over her ears and scrunched her eyes closed, bending at the waist as the ringing continued like unrelenting white noise. 

Finally, the ringing died off after an incomprehensible amount of time. Adora slowly opened her eyes to find the Etherian night sky above her. Her body relaxed, muscles loosening as she stared up, already forgetting about the ringing. A hazy band of indigo dotted with hundreds of tiny shimmering stars ran across like a swipe of glittering paint on canvas. No matter how many times she saw the stars, it never failed to take her breath away. 

She traced the patterns of the stars, drawing figures as she connected one dot with another. _Constellations_ , King Micah had said, _are the product of imaginations like the dreams we play in our sleep._

Adora turned her head to find Catra curled up next to her, head resting on her shoulder and hand on her chest. A rumbling purr vibrated in the space between them and contentment filled Adora. The tail wrapped around her thigh, the gentle rise of Catra's chest, and the warm press of Catra against her side grounded Adora and for a moment, she forgot about the trackerpad. She smoothed down a tuft of Catra's hair. 

If this was a dream, Adora didn't want to wake from it. 

A shiver ran through Adora and she wished she had thought to bring a blanket out. But Catra was dozing and to wake her up to get a blanket seemed merciless. She knew Catra had trouble sleeping lately. 

Adora paused, feeling her forehead crease as confusion set in once again at the wayward thought. Catra hadn't been sleeping well, not since the war. Adora knew this with such certainty in her bones. 

It was like the tingling in her hands, the sudden chill that would flood her body like being dunked in a pool of icy water, and the overwhelming dread that accompanied the thought that she had forgotten something important. 

Those feelings were right. 

They were _real_. 

The mysterious euphoria that hit her like a shot of dopamine, forcing relaxation into her muscles and dulling her mind? 

That wasn't right and Adora knew that with a clarity that came with the numbers and letters, appearing like a message to her. Only she couldn’t understand it. 

Adora jolted upright, sending Catra falling into her lap with a surprised yelp. Her back tensed in pain as lancing sharpness shot down her spine. She sucked a shallow breath through her teeth, jaw clenched to the point that her molars ached from the pressure. 

'Hey, are you feeling alright?' Catra's eyes widened and she sat up next to Adora, tail flicking erratically back and forth. She stroked Adora's face gently. 'Tell me what you're feeling?'

‘I-I…It-I...’ A wave of pain hit her, pulling a loud gasp out of her and it took all of her to even breathe. Adora tipped her head back. The night sky swam and undulated above as if she was submerged in water and looking up at the surface from beneath. 

_{ M-e-m-o-R-Y_  
_-RePlaCemeNT-_  
_0% }_  
_:// system.ATE.nbot.RUN >_  
_exec = {/erRoR//}_  
_ov.ride.coDe:// system.EMILY.xbot.RUN >_  
_exec = {/puRge//}_

The world stuttered and flashed from the dark navy of the sky above to a warped green. Adora blinked and blinked, but nothing changed. Her vision stayed a nauseating green. Something hard was between her teeth as feeling returned and awareness filtered through her senses. She stretched her arms, hands touching something smooth and solid. Her fingers slid against the surface.

She twisted her body, fighting the viscous green fluid that fought every movement of her limbs. A line of pain ran down her spine. She bit down on whatever was in her mouth. 

It was a dream. 

She would wake up any minute and find herself with Catra by her side as they stargazed together. 

It must be a dream.

Any minute, she would wake up. 

She…

_‘Adora!’_

Adora landed with a thud on the floor. Her bare legs and arms twitched, nerves numb and deadened as she struggled weakly to move. Cough after cough racked her frame, expelling the tube in her mouth and freezing fluid from her lungs with every contraction of her chest. 

She forced her heavy eyelids open, drooping with every effort to keep them open. Opened or closed, it didn’t matter. Her vision span, blurring and focusing in a dizzying array that only made her stomach protest. Every thought felt like wading through molasses. Beneath her hands, her cheek, every part of her body was smooth and slick. Metal. That was what the contact was. She shivered violently on the wet metal floor. Cold and naked and covered in green fluid. A broken glass tank came in and out of focus. Her jaw hurt. Every vertebrae in her back throbbed. 

Hands that weren’t her own lifted her head onto something soft and warm. Tear-filled blue and yellow eyes stared down at her. Quivering lips moved soundlessly. Drops of tears fell onto Adora’s face and burned hot against the chilled skin on her cheeks. 

A single word scratched its way up Adora’s throat, leaving her mouth in a dry rasp. ‘Catra?’ 

Adora tried a smile, eyes focusing enough to see Catra's flattened ears and her unruly brown hair. The muscles in Adora’s face were stiff, no matter how she moved her lips. Her attempt to smile only seemed to infuriate Catra even more. Her fur bristled in agitation and her eyes shimmered with more tears. 

She did it again, did something reckless and made Catra cry. Hurt Catra again. There was no other explanation for the tears. Adora reached up, the muscles in her arm weak, hand trembling as she tried to brush the tears from Catra's cheek. 

Catra held onto her hand and pressed Adora's thin hand to her face. Her mouth moved with the shapes of words, the barest of sounds filtered through the buzzing in Adora’s ears. Darkness bled in from the edges of her vision and her eyes drooped with the effort to keep them open. She wanted to sleep. 

‘No, no, Adora! Stay with me! Entrapta, get the tubes out of her now!’ 

Adora sighed as she heard Catra’s voice, high and shrill and even filled with alarm it still brought comfort to her. 

‘Stay with me! You promised to stay and I’m not letting you go!’ Catra’s face moved closer. ‘I can't lose you after—’

Adora gave into the pull of sleep, consciousness slipping into darkness. 

***

The rhythmic beeps of a heart monitor sounded. Constant. Stable. Adora blinked, mind alert, body aching from pain in a way she hadn't felt in a long time. The ceiling above was still and didn’t swim. It stayed a solid and a blank white. Her left arm was numb and heavy. She looked down to see Catra, eyes closed, lying with her head on top of the blankets covering Adora's left arm. 

Adora’s shuffling disturbed Catra, who lifted her head, eyes bleary with sleep. The doziness of sleep cleared into clarity at seeing Adora awake. She sat up, brown hair mussed to one side. Catra's chin wobbled before her jaw tightened. The wet sheen to her tired eyes bright as her throat bobbed.

'Where am I?' Adora's voice was barely a whisper, but Catra's ears heard her. 

'Home.’ Catra bit down on her bottom lip as her chin quivered. Her hands slipped beneath the blankets in search of Adora’s. 'We got you home.' 

Home. Adora's eyes moved from Catra to the white ceiling, recognising it for the arched ceiling of Bright Moon's hospital ward, then to the light lilac-coloured walls that surrounded her, and finally back to Catra. Catra whose hair had grown just past her shoulder, who looked so exhausted and still so beautiful to Adora. She really was home. 

'How long?' Adora tried to shift onto her side to face Catra, only to find that her strength had left her. Her body unwilling to cooperate with the movement. She gave up and turned her head. 

The anger and frustration that made up Catra from before the war, had become smaller, more pliable and less likely to surface as she healed and found herself. The explosive nature of Catra’s emotions, though tempered was still there before they had arrived Até, Adora remembered that. Now it was strangely absent, replaced by sadness that draped over Catra like a shroud.

Catra swallowed and wet her lips. 'It's been two months.'

'Since we got home?' 

'No, we landed back in Etheria yesterday,' said Catra and the grip on Adora's tightened to the point of pain.

Adora lifted her free hand and brushed the long strands of hair that fell across Catra's face, thumb running along the line of Catra's bottom lip, until she released it from the punishing bite of her teeth. 

After a few fortifying breaths of air, Catra straightened her shoulders, 'You were taken by the Atéiaen for two months before—’ a shuddering sob escaped her as she paused, ‘—we got you back.' 

Adora closed her eyes and blessed darkness enveloped her. The absence of any other colour was a relief. Her body hurt with a vengeance, her mind even more, but Adora focused on the sting of Catra's claws on the back of her hand.

The sharp points on her soft skin were real. Doubt still seeped in as Adora's mind questioned her. Two months was a long time to have her reality warped by machines. 

‘Is this real?’ whispered Adora. ‘Please tell me it's real this time.' 

Catra crawled into the bed without a word. Fitting herself between Adora's side and arm, she buried her face into the crook of Adora's neck, arm holding on tight to Adora's waist.

Adora sighed at the hot breath against her skin. The soft touch of Catra's lips on her collar bone was a balm of reassurance to her mind. 

'I'm real,' said Catra. 'This is real.' 


End file.
